"The expenditure for digitization and digital transformation can be met within your enterprise IT budget"

Former General Manager (Management Services) & CIO, KRIBHCO, Noida, shares his views on whether digital budget be separate from enterprise IT budget?

In my view, there is no need to keep separate budget allocation in the name of digital.
When we talk about enterprise IT, we always talk about a larger frame of implementation of IT In any enterprise IT environment, it is required to keep the business running. To do that, one needs to budget for all activities —from data preparation to application development to users training— and provide all necessary information relating to business. We have to understand the concept of allocating IT budget. Keeping in view of the type of business, we prepare the IT budget based on the business requirements and business plan of an enterprise. The company’s management is only concerned about their ROI and it is the responsibility of CIO to plan and distribute the allocated budget into various activities.
There are three types of transformation to be activated in any organization:
- Digital transformation
- IT Transformation
- Workforce Transformation
Enterprise IT transformation encompasses all of the above. While considering the business plan of an enterprise, one should always consider all three activities in order to achieve a successful IT implementation. This means that while preparing an IT budget, CIOs should always think of an end to end solution for an enterprise so that at any stage of implementation from data preparation to digital transformation, security implementation, and users training, it is enough to propel the business in a stable manner with the help of adequate IT infrastructure.
Digital transformation is an integral part of IT Transformation. But yes, if digitization is required more effort, one can plan accordingly during the implementation stage. But keeping separate budgets just in the name of Digital is demanding an extra fund allocation for IT activities.
The expenditure for digitization and digital transformation can be met within your enterprise IT budget, which must project a clear picture of your enterprise IT spending across infrastructure, digital and business as usual.
In view of the above, keep the enterprise IT budget as a whole and then implement the various activities in different phases.As told to Shubhra Rishi, Associate Editor - B2B, CIO&Leader